SURVIVAL Vehicle First Aid KIT

Not for a private vehicle under road rules. Obligations generally come from work health and safety duties instead: if the vehicle is used for work, the employer's first aid duty extends to it, and many fleets, contractors and sites require kits under their own rules. Most private drivers carry one because a vehicle is where you are most likely to be a long way from help.

The contents are weighted toward roadside incidents: pressure bandages, a full complement of wound dressings, an emergency blanket, a resuscitation mask and CPR card, plus a snake bandage, reflecting the kit's Australian design brief. The construction matters too, being water resistant and rugged with luminous piping for finding it at night.

Because the kit is designed in Australia, where a vehicle is exactly where someone is likely to encounter a snake, often well away from help. Where snakes are not a local risk, the same item is simply a high quality heavy duty pressure bandage for serious bleeding. The SMART bandage is a reusable heavy duty pressure bandage printed with pictograms indicating the correct tension, which is the part people find hardest under pressure. It also suits funnel-web spider bites. Snake bite is an emergency services call first, and the technique should come from first aid training.

Twice a year is a sensible minimum, and more often than you would check one indoors. Heat cycling in a boot is hard on adhesives, dressings and sterile saline, so check expiry dates and the condition of the packaging, and replace anything used straight away rather than making a note to do it later.

Yes, there is a zippered mesh personal space section for exactly that. Personal medications, an asthma reliever, sunscreen and insect repellent are the common additions, and extra pressure bandages are worth it if you drive in snake country. Keep your own items separate from the numbered contents so restocking stays simple.

The numbered labelling tells you how many of each item should be there, so a gap is obvious at a glance, and a QR code links to the restock portal. In practice the useful habit is checking the labels against the contents after any use at all, however minor.

It is sized for a vehicle rather than a base camp, with an increased depth, an extra full mesh panel and two deep pockets in the current design. For extended remote travel with several people, many drivers carry this plus a larger kit, on the basis that the vehicle kit is what you grab and the larger one stays packed.

Then the kit is doing half a job, and we would rather say so. The colour-coded labelling, CPR card and printed booklet are designed to help an untrained person act, and the snake bandage pictograms exist for the same reason, but none of it substitutes for training. A first aid course is the cheapest upgrade you can make to any kit.